Older and Better: My Kind of Mr. Big

euphoria. noun - a feeling of great (usually exaggerated) elation

Thank you, mobile phone dictionary, for being so succinct. Euphoria is the very word I would use to describe my Mr. Big experience last October 31st. The build-up of excitement--from the time I found out they were coming over to the very moment they appeared onstage--took a little over two months before culmination, so that meant I had had to suppress that little lump of giddiness for quite a while. Our tickets were purchased two weeks before the date and by that time, I had already consumed enough of their music to fill a medium-sized pool. I am a discography type of person, though I no longer have the luxury of time to "study" each and every album, so I end up singling out and retaining only my favorites from each. A handful was added to my cache of Mr. Bigs, but I still spent so much time listening to them because once a song becomes a favorite, I put it on loop and listen to it enough times for somebody else's ears and patience to burst.

Sadly, though, Mr. Big started out for me as Eric Martin and only Eric Martin, when I was in High School and still very much prone to crushing on celebrity vocalists, Eric Martin not the least of them, if only because he was so deliciously good-looking and had one of the best voices in town. Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan--I used to not see drummers back then, so Pat Torpey was virtually non-existent--were no more than fixtures for me, ignorant little girl that I was, whose idea of music consumption was confined to song and singer, and knowing next to nothing of the other (equally) important details that went with the finished product. All those changed when I got older, but that's another story.

So, anyway, there we were, two hours before the concert, loading up on a few beers, trying to contain the excitement that found (paltry) relief only in sudden exclamations of "I'm so excited I could barely contain it!" And alcohol, so it would seem, because we managed to make it to the arena in one piece. Thankfully, we had prepared ourselves for a delay, being used to waiting as we were, so it didn't appall us as much as the sight of the half-empty (or half-full, for the positive thinkers out there) venue did. I found myself getting more and more dismayed as the minutes ticked by and there didn't seem to be much hope of the arena getting filled. I grew anxious for the band because yes, I'm a little crazy that way. What will they think and how will they feel, poor creatures? What is wrong with people? I questioned the universe for a little while, biting the ends of my fingernails and sighing. The minutes stretched into longer ones and I turned into a huge blob slumped into my seat, watching a big, white guy in denim shorts and a black shirt making last minute check-ups on the set. His long hair was tied in a ponytail and I wondered what his life was like.

When the lights went out and loud, orchestral music filled the room, people started to clap and shout and whistle and I felt the hairs on my nape and arms rise. The band went onstage and took their places and everything else disappeared into a vacuum--I felt myself rising to an all-time high, and the rest is history. Or maybe not. They opened with "Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy", played "Green-Tinted Sixties Mind" and "Just Take My Heart" to an audience that could hardly stop itself from singing along, "Alive and Kickin'", "I Forget To Breathe", "Addicted to That Rush", "Take Cover", and some tracks from their new album The Stories We Could Tell, "As Far as I Can See" being my favorite from that album, which I have yet to "study".

Eric Martin wasn't as cute as I remembered him to be (I'm stupid, I already know that), but he was still able to hit the notes, though sustaining them was an altogether different affair; still, he had ways of playing around with the vocals so that he still winged the more difficult songs with flair. Paul Gilbert was his usual brilliant self and the crowd went crazy when he did his solos, but Billy Sheehan ended up the one to take my breath away--so much stage presence, that giant of a man, and those guitar rifts, holy molly! Apparently, he is who Mr. Big took its name from, and this new tidbit delighted me to no end. Pat Torpey, who has been diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease, still appeared on stage and drummed to "Just Take My Heart" and "Addicted to that Rush". For the rest of the night, his place was filled in by a drummer who was known to me only as "that bald guy". I just recently found out his name was Mark Starr. "To Be With You" and "Wild World" were my two least favorite numbers.

Everything else was a roaring blast, as I had expected--and hoped--it would be. It was a relief that the band did not allow the sight of the empty seats to stop them from being in their element. They soared up to the high ceilings with their energy, more fired up and bigger than I have ever known them to be. There they were, a bunch of wonderfully talented musicians who've been playing for fans for 25 years; there they were, in their mid-fifties and having gone through as much of life's ups-and-downs as any other person could; there they were, older and better. I had a feeling that night was going to imprint itself on me for a while, and was I right. I'm writing this more than a week from that time, and I can still remember how they were, and how I was, watching them.

They didn't play "CDFF Lucky This Time", which is my favorite Mr. Big song, but I ended up not minding, at all. My pool was overflowing and it was one of the best feelings in the world. That night, I went home nostalgic, reminiscing how it was in the 90's, remembering my long, wavy, untreated hair and my afternoon trips to the diner with my friends, the little joys and heartbreaks, the weekends spent reading and waiting for my favorite songs to be played by faceless DJs, the light, airy evenings, wonderful little stuff that only fourteen-and-something-year-olds can know--and I felt young and stupid and happy, all over again. And so it goes that the things we loved and lost but keep loving, anyway, eventually find their way back to us, at some point or another, and music has just the power to bring it all back. And that unforgettable night, Mr. Big made it all happen for me.